As Windows 11 is not natively supported on Apple Silicon Macs, owners need virtualization software to run the Microsoft OS on the Macs with M1 and M2 chips. To know how fast Windows 11 performs on Apple Silicon Macs against Windows laptops, YouTubers @Max Tech tested the OS on the new M2 MacBook Air through Parallels 18 (virtualization software) against Dell XPS Plus laptop.
The experiment revealed that Windows 11 runs faster on the M2 MacBook Air than on Dell XPS 13 Plus.
The fanless M2 MacBook Air offers faster Windows 11, and higher power efficiency than the more expensive Dell XPS 13 Plus
Apple launched the M2 chip at the WWDC 2022 event in the redesigned MacBook Air. Built on a second-generation 5nm process, the new M2 Apple Silicon delivers a faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, along with higher memory bandwidth.
The powerful processor has made the new M2 MacBook Air a strong competitor in the notebooks market, outshining more expensive and natively supported Windows laptops.
Both machines had 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD but the MacBook Air (2022) ran the Geekbench 5 test unplugged while Dell XPS 13 Plus was tested plugged and unplugged.
The scores revealed that M2 MacBook Air for $1,699 beat the Dell XPS 13 Plus for $1849 in Windows 11 performance, web browsing speed, and battery life. Here are the notebooks Geekbench 5 scores and web browsing speed.
- MacBook Air (M2, 2022)
- Geekbench 5: 1681 on the single-core and 7260 on the multi-core one
- Web browsing speed: 228 run/min
- Dell XPS 13 Plus
- Geekbench 5: 1182 on single-core and 5476 on multi-core (Unplugged)
- Geekbench 5: 1548 on single-core and 8103 on multi-core (Plugged in)
- Web browsing speed: 209 run/min
YouTuber concludes that M2 MacBook Air is hands down a better choice than Windows Dell XPS 13 Plus because users will get a better camera, display, lighter notebook, no fan noise, and resale value.
Addressing the shortcomings of running Windows 11 through Parallel 18 on the 2022 MacBook Air, YouTuber said that users can run the un-supported software on macOS like Divinci Resolve and Dolby creative cloud.
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